Billy Bragg played City Winery (setlists, late show pics), preps new EP

The great Billy Bragg played two shows at City Winery on Monday (10/16), as usual just armed with a guitar, great songs and great stories. For those who went to both shows, Billy mixed up the sets considerably: the early show got three songs off 1988’s Workers Playtime and the late show got a few from 1991’s Don’t Try This at Home. Both got “Levi Stubbs Tears,” “A New England,” and “The Milkman of Human Kindness” (and others). Of course half the fun of a Billy Bragg show is his between-song banter and stories, and Tuesday he touched on most of the current hot button topics, including Donald Trump, Unions, Brexit, and Harvey Weinstein. Pictures from the late show are in the gallery above and setlists from the early and late shows, and a few fan-shot videos, are below.

In other news, Billy has a new six-track EP, titled Bridges Not Walls, out November 3, which collects some of the songs he’s released this year such as his Dylan re-write, “The Times They Are a Changing Back” and new single “Saffiyah Smiles.” He explains:

Life comes at you real fast these days. What’s a singer-songwriter to do when events keep challenging the way that we see the world? Before we’ve had a chance to digest one startling development, along comes another to throw us off balance again. I’ve been grubbing up songs for the past 12 months, but without the time to get an album together due to other projects, so in an effort to keep pace with these chaotic times I decided to start dropping tracks as they became ready across the summer culminating in a mini album. As always, they’re my way of trying to make some sense of what’s going on. And there’s been a lot going on.

You can listen to a few of those songs from the EP (which he played at City Winery) below.

SETLIST: Billy Bragg @ City Winery 10/16/2019 (early)
A Lover Sings
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Little Time Bomb
The Sleep of Reason
Slipknot (Woody Guthrie cover)
The Warmest Room
Upfield
King Tide and The Sunny Day Flood
Must I Paint You a Picture?
Saffiyah Smiles
Levi Stubbs’ Tears
The Milkman of Human Kindness
Why We Build the Wall (Anaïs Mitchell cover)
Between the Wars
There Is Power in a Union

Encore:
The Times They Are A-Changin’ Back (Bob Dylan cover)
A New England

SETLIST: Billy Bragg @ City Winery 10/16/2019 (late)
To Have and to Have Not
No Power Without Accountability
The Sleep of Reason
Accident Waiting to Happen
Slipknot (Woody Guthrie cover)
Tank Park Salute
Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted (new song first time played)
Sexuality
Saffiyah Smiles
Handyman Blues
Upfield
King Tide and The Sunny Day Flood
The Saturday Boy
Levi Stubbs’ Tears
The Milkman of Human Kindness
I Keep Faith
There Is Power in a Union

Encore:
The Times They Are A-Changin’ Back (Bob Dylan cover)
Greetings to the New Brunette
A New England

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